


You Look Just Like...

by gimmefire



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gimmefire/pseuds/gimmefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>François was reincarnated as Jérôme to get the chance with Jackie he never took before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Look Just Like...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [motorskink](http://motorskink.livejournal.com/) [prompt](http://motorskink.livejournal.com/1749.html?thread=205781#t205781). Beta by [mackem](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mackem).

He has spent so long watching. It feels like decades. Maybe time passes more slowly now; maybe the ache in his heart makes it feel as though it does. It seems that everything he knows is very far away, obscured by mist or some kind of tunnel vision. Time crawls along, far-off and wretchedly unclear, but the faces he knows are still there, fleeting glimpses of those left behind. Perhaps most importantly, _his_ face is still there. Older, greyer, but still there. Still him.

He has spent so long watching. And, though he will not admit it even to himself, he has spent so long waiting. Hoping.

He doesn't know exactly when things became different. His memory doesn't work quite the way it did before, so everything tends to blend into everything else. He's distantly aware that he cannot see those old faces anymore, hasn't been able to for a while. Instead there are new faces, clear and bright and smiling and _there_. He can reach out and touch, he can smile and laugh, eventually talk and walk. He's growing up. He's brand new. Except...he isn't.

He is reminded of that in his dreams. Once he is a teenager in the midst of his own racing career, he regularly dreams of his past. The faces are even more obscure than before; he barely sees them, like his attention is always pulled elsewhere, but he feels a strong, magnetic connection to them. When he wakes, there is an ache in his heart that he no longer understands.

He has these dreams for years, each almost exactly the same as the last, until he's in his twenties. One night, he wakes gasping for breath, staring, body tingling as though electrified. His dream is suddenly vivid and sharp as the tang of blood, painful like a razor cut. It was a race track from a different era; he could almost smell the oil, the cigarette smoke. He saw the faces. Recognised them. Recognised _him_. Sunglasses, sideburns, black cap, overalls, Elf, Goodyear, Tyrrell. Accent. Dark eyes.

He realises that it's deeper than simple recognition; he knows him. It's familiarity. A certain level of intimacy. He knows the texture of his hair, the feel of his skin. Things he couldn't know, couldn't _possibly_ know, because...

He struggles to sleep for the rest of the night, staring at his palm as he numbly opens and closes his hand, feeling skin he's never touched before. He whispers a name, _his_ name, mystified. His ankle aches and he doesn't know why.

He only begins to believe that there might be something deeper to his recurring dreams the following day. Race circuit, signing a few autographs. _Do you know, you look like..._ It is not the first time he has heard those words, far from it. But it is the first time he has truly listened to them.

He lies in bed analysing the ceiling, dissecting its tiles, wondering what that night will bring. _You look just like..._ He mouths the words, the back of his hand resting on his forehead. _You look just like..._ His eyes slip closed and he is consumed by sleep, absorbed into those dreams. He barely notices. It all feels so comfortable.

He is at the same track as before. Everything feels even more vivid, none of the gaps or inconsistencies found in other dreams. Now he doesn't just smell cigarette smoke, he tastes their traces on his lips, feels the craving for another. He looks over at the man he knows to be his teammate and feels a similar craving; there's that ache in his heart. He's aware that he'll do something about it soon, for better or worse.

He is in his car, about to flip down his helmet visor, when he looks up and blows a kiss to a woman - one of those faces he knows - in the pits. He grins, though she can't see it. He exits the pits and the track stretches out before him, first corner, sweeping through the trees--

He wakes suddenly, ripped from his slumber by some external force, bolt upright and shouting his own name. No, wait...not his own name...but...but...

_You look just like..._

He lets out a sob and clamps a hand over his mouth to prevent more from escaping, an inexplicable but irrefutable understanding roaring through him. His eyes are wide and damp. He is Jérôme...except he isn't. And he has spent so long waiting.

\-------------------------------

He sees the man from his dreams a year later. Not on television or in a magazine, and not through that barely-remembered obscuring mist. He sees him in the paddock, in person for the first time, and the sight alone is enough to steal his breath. It is a cliché to set eyes upon someone and see no-one else in the vicinity, and yet that's precisely how he feels; his attention captured by a vision of the past, before him in flesh and blood. He aches for him, fiercely so. He feels light headed. Not for the first time of late, he wants a cigarette.

He is a second away from snapping himself out of it and walking away - at least for now, until he can gather his thoughts and trust himself to form intelligible words - when the man looks in his direction for the first time and does a double-take. For one electric moment, one heart-stopping, stomach-lurching, miraculous and terrifying moment, the man's eyes seem to widen fractionally and he stares, hand moving to his chest in visible shock. Stares at who he sees, stares at who he _might_ be seeing.

He is breathless again. The air stills and sound drops away. He feels as though the ground has plummeted beneath his feet. Perhaps this _is_ another dream... No. Not this time. He's sure of it. _Older, greyer, but still there. Still him._

He moves towards the other man, heart fluttering as though it is their first meeting. Well, in one way it is, and in another it has been a long, long time... A hand is offered to him, the notion of seeing a ghost clearly having been glossed over with a cordial smile.

"Jackie," he murmurs from an aching throat. He doesn't recognise his own voice. Utterly a loss for what to say, for how to explain when he doesn't truly understand it himself, he indicates down to his feet and gives a wavering smile. "My ankle is okay now. No more piggybacks."

And Jackie's eyes widen once again.


End file.
